Some concern has been expressed to me recently about people potentially not liking to click on the 'report abuse' button when they are concerned about a particular post, so I just wanted to explain how this process works and when it should be used.

If you have ANY concerns about a post you have read on the NRAS HU forum we want to know about it. If you click on the button next to the offending post to report it to us you will then be able to explain briefly what has concerned you. It might be that you feel the comment was abusive or upsetting, or it may just be that you feel it was misguided or giving incorrect information.

When you report a post, HealthUnlocked and the NRAS admins will be made aware of this and will take action that they consider appropriate. This may be as serious as removing the person who has made the post, but is more likely to involve a private message to the individual who posted it, asking them to remove their post or making them aware of the concerns for future reference. In some cases we may decide that no action is needed and that no forum rules have been broken, but in all cases we would rather a post was reported than find out that it had upset people but that we hadn't had a chance to look at resolving this for them.

If you have any questions, please feel free to comment on this post or send me a private message through HealthUnlocked.

Many thanks

Victoria

(NRAS Helpline)

8 Replies

Oops sorry for deleting my comment when you have already replied! I just wrote far too much. You help others often and you were one of the first people to PM me with a very supportive and helpful message when I was about to start MTX - for which I will be eternally grateful! Xxx

4 years agoHidden

Just left a comment and then became too paranoid to leave it up! I just want to say that anyone who goes to the trouble of finding and joining this site probably needs it quite badly and should think twice about withdrawing from it without going through HU and NRAS first in case its all down to a misunderstanding. Misunderstandings are so easy in this context.

4 years agoHidden

The written word can often be misinterpreted as things can appear too black and white without the person face to face as the very important body language is absence.. for instance some times people on here can be funny and having a joke but some people may take the wrong way. so agree with Tilda and Scouser, we are all individuals and really the commom aim is to help each other..

Does any one know why people have been leaving the site?.. I was away on hol for a week , but was off line for 8-9 days.. came back to a lot of emails most connected with this site.. but not all!!, Ive had NO messages saying people were leaving , but have come back to find at least two people are missing?.

It is also like real life there is some one and some thing for everyone, and you can pick and chose how much or little or do. meet some virtual friends or even real ones!!.

There a lot of great people on here but Sylvi is one of the more active and positive members and tries to cheer us up!..

I'm not sure that you would have known there was a problem even if you'd been here. Thankfully nothing blew up on the forum, I think it was just a problem with how a post was interpreted. I think sometimes people just have to be mindful of how their posts might be read by someone in a different situation, especially people who are newly diagnosed/ are new to the site. Of course sometimes as careful as we try to be things can still be misinterpreted so that's why I wanted to encourage people to know if anything concerns them.

Thank you for these very helpful comments. I am pleased to see that you found this post helpful and I hope it will encourage people to contact us before leaving the site. I am sure we have all been guilty of typing something that in the written word looked too black and white, as Summer says, and was not interpreted in the way that we meant it.

I hope that people will feel happy to contact us in the future if anything on the site upsets or concerns them in any way. Similarly, if people do contact others privately about a post, you could always make us aware that people had been upset by something, while still protecting them by not telling us who was upset by it if they do not want to contact us directly.

I agree that if a comment disturbs you it should be reported. I would want to know if or when I upset someone unintentionally or give advice that is incorrect, or said something that could be misinterperated , at least then it gives the moderaters a chance to give constructive advice to us that use the site.

I have at times my self contacted HU for support and advice as sometimes it is hard on the site helping people who are upset.

I enjoy using the site very much and it has helped me immensely and I have mad so many friends here and am grateful.